CIF: An Ice Nucleation Cold-Stage for Research and Teaching

该社区仪器和设施（CIF）奖使北卡罗来纳州国家冰成核冷阶段（NC国家CS）冷冻测定可作为一个社区仪器设施。该仪器由一个机器视觉光学系统组成，用于观察热控制表面。该仪器的主要目的是观察过冷水滴的冻结成核过程。该仪器适用于研究环境冰成核颗粒浓度和基于实验室的成核过程的过程级研究。该设施将在各种会议上宣传，包括专门针对以促进科学多样性为重点的专业团体的会议。将利用多用户网络界面创建和传播交互式教育内容，教师可使用该界面补充各种本科和研究生课程的教学，该项目提供仪器和教育资源，以解决描述大气中冰成核粒子丰度的问题。通过成为一个社区仪器设施，冷阶段技术将变得更广泛地提供给不专门从事仪器设计的团体。该奖项的资金还将产生一个可以自行制造的低成本版本的仪器的公共设计。该奖项将提高更广泛的科学界通过大气和地球空间科学设施和仪器申请流程使用北卡罗来纳州冰核冷阶段冷冻试验的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Community Instruments and Facilities (CIF) award makes the North Carolina State ice nucleation Cold Stage (NC State CS) freezing assay available as a community instrument facility. The instrument consists of a machine vision optical system to observe a thermally controlled surface. The main purpose of the instrument is to observe the freezing nucleation process of supercooled water droplets. The instrument is suitable for studying ambient ice nucleating particle concentrations and laboratory-based process-level studies of the nucleation process. The facility will be advertised at conferences, including conferences that exclusively target professional societies focused on fostering enhanced diversity in science. Interactive educational content will be created and disseminated using a multi-user web-interface that can be used by instructors to supplement instruction in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses.This project contributes instrumentation and educational resources to tackle the problem of characterizing the abundance of ice nucleating particles in the atmosphere. By becoming a community instrument facility, the cold-stage technique will become more widely available to groups that do not specialize in instrument design. Funds for the award will also yield a public design of a low-cost version of the instrument that can be self-manufactured. This award will enhance the ability of the broader scientific community to use the NC State ice nucleation cold stage freezing assay through the Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences facility and instrument request process.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.